


A Conspiracy of Ravens

by pasdexcuses



Series: if hell's a pretty place, too [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Curse Breakers, M/M, Unspeakables
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-14
Updated: 2014-10-14
Packaged: 2018-02-15 12:33:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2229147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pasdexcuses/pseuds/pasdexcuses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry gritted his teeth before conceding, “You were right, Malfoy.” Then, “Though I don’t see how gloating is going to help.”</p><p><b>Career Choices:</b> Harry: Unspeakable; Draco: Curse breaker.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Conspiracy of Ravens

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Vaysh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vaysh/gifts).



> For [Prompt # 62](http://hd-fan-fair.livejournal.com/74208.html?thread=3509216#t3509216).
> 
> Dear Vaysh, your prompt was truly fabulous and I wish I’d had more time to do it justice, but hopefully this won’t disappoint too much! Thanks very much to abriata for the beta, all remaining mistakes are mine :)
> 
>  **Disclaimer:** All Harry Potter characters herein are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No copyright infringement is intended.

Malfoy’s living room was plain. Plain olive sofas, on plain wooden floors, surrounded by plain white walls. There was a coffee table in the middle, and the only thing that jumped out was the cluttered bookshelf, that went from the floor to the ceiling. His flat smelled like tobacco and cologne. 

Harry shifted awkwardly in his seat. He found Malfoy’s lack of interior design disconcerting. 

Malfoy brought out a cigarette and lighter from his pocket. He lit the thing with his lips curved around it, one hand holding the lighter and the other cupped around the end. Then he took a drag. “Let’s see if I’ve got this right, Potter,” he said next, blowing smoke into Harry’s face. “You’re trying to hire me to find a book, but you can’t tell me which; to then plot a route, but you can’t tell me where; to then get to a place that may or may not be deadly cursed. Did I leave something out?” He took another drag, blew more smoke into Harry’s breathing space.

Harry coughed. “Those will kill you, you know that?” Harry said, pointing at the offending object sticking out of Malfoy’s mouth. 

Malfoy smirked. “Well, I’d say you’re concerned, but somehow that doesn’t quite add up.”

Harry rolled his eyes, coughed some more. He took a deep breath and explained, “I cannot tell you more until you’ve signed a non-disclosure agreement.” 

“Right, and you’re surprised no one’s taken the job because…?”

Harry felt like rolling his eyes once more but that seemed awfully repetitive, so he settled for a tart, “Yes or no?”

Malfoy scrutinized him. “Alright, then.”

The part of Harry that had offered the job to less questionable characters before finally giving up and coming here was surprised that Malfoy gave in so easily. 

The part of Harry that had known Malfoy since he first stepped foot in Madam Malkin’s shop, however, was not. It was this part of Harry that eyed Malfoy carefully as he signed on all the dotted lines. If it had been up to Harry, he would’ve also subjected Malfoy to some sort of Unbreakable Vow where he wouldn’t be able to take any personal profits from their research, other than the Galleons agreed upon. 

“So,” Malfoy started. He picked up his cigarette from where it sat, gathering ashes. “What’s this all about?”

Harry squared his shoulders before answering, “Atlantis.”

Malfoy snorted. Or, at least he would have if he hadn’t started choking on his own cloud of dark smoke. “Bloody hell,” he rasped. 

Harry considered clapping Malfoy on the back. But ‘there, there’ wasn’t a feeling Malfoy inspired in him. Harry didn’t reckon he was actually choking. And if Malfoy did indeed die, well, Harry had tried to warn him. 

 

They’d been at this for three weeks and it wasn’t getting any better. If anything, Harry would say it was getting worse. Some days, Harry would see Malfoy’s bobbing blond head ahead of him and an uncontrollable need to curse the back of it and watch it explode into flames surged from somewhere dark within him. And those were the good days. 

“I think we’re lost,” Harry announced, looking around. 

He was sure they’d already passed this particular tree before. 

“You _think_?” Malfoy parroted, giving Harry an exaggerated sigh. 

It was possible Malfoy had made the same discovery twenty minutes ago, and Harry had decided to ignore him. 

Harry gritted his teeth before conceding, “You were right, Malfoy.” Then, “Though I don’t see how gloating is going to help.”

Malfoy took out his cigarettes, and Harry wondered, not for the first time, where he kept his infinite stash. He still carried the smell of tobacco wherever he went, but the cologne had faded somewhere along the way. There was now something fresher underneath Malfoy’s ashtray smell. Maybe it was all the trees, Harry thought as he stared at Malfoy’s lips curving around his cig.

It was Malfoy’s first of the day. He didn’t have many on a daily basis, but Harry could tell this was his first. With the first, Malfoy always dragged deeply, like a starved man.

He blew smoke up at the trees then turned to Harry and smirked, “It’s going to help when you next decide to be bloody thick and remember how I love to gloat because I’m always right.”

Fuck you, Harry thought. But it was too early to say that out loud. Harry at least wanted to make it through lunch before they exploded into yet another spontaneous fight. His right eye was only starting to fade into green since the last one. For someone with such delicately manicured hands, Malfoy could sure land a punch. 

“How about lunch, before we decide what next,” Harry offered. He tried to go for nice but somehow ended up sounding constipated, even to his own ears.

Malfoy waved his hand around, ashes dropping to the ground. His fingers were pale and long, and Harry thought they looked like willowy branches. 

Harry looked up at the sky. Beyond the trees, gray clouds were threatening to soak them through and through because apparently no one had informed these clouds that it was still summer and their presence was, therefore, not required. Days like this, Harry thought, really made him hate his job. And he couldn’t even write to his friends and complain like regular people. He knew the ravens were following them. Bloody birds with their bloody sneaky arses. 

“What do we have?” Malfoy asked petulantly.

Harry pretended to rummage through his bag but he knew perfectly well the contents of it. “Bread, some ham and that cheese you stole. And I picked up some berries on the way.”

Malfoy sighed out a gray cloud of his own. “You’re not trying to poison me again, are you?”

“That was one time.”

It had been their first week, and Harry had never pretended he was a Master in Herbology anyway. Malfoy had shrieked when he saw Harry picking up the berries, yelling about Harry trying to commit suicide and take him out in the process as an added bonus. If Harry had not been so irritated at Malfoy, he would’ve actually been impressed. And maybe Malfoy had learnt Legilimency from Snape or Voldemort, because the next thing Harry knew, Malfoy was waving his long fingers and saying something about ‘occupational hazards’ and ‘useless institutions that taught nothing of value’. Harry had been on the verge of starting up an argument on the merits of Hogwarts, but then considered Malfoy. It hadn’t seemed like Malfoy was talking about Hogwarts. Plus, he had just saved Harry’s life. 

“One time too many,” Malfoy said. He held out his hand. “Give me the cheese.”

Harry did as he was asked. He wouldn’t call their silence companionable, but this was as best as it ever got with Malfoy. 

Harry wondered if he would’ve taken the job if he’d known it’d be like this. Weeks and weeks of traveling around with Malfoy, trying to find some diary that no one had seen in the past millennium or so. It kind of reminded Harry, in a perverse sort of way, of his time spent trying to hunt down Horcruxes. He was sure this would go much faster with Hermione here. But alas; no one ever said being an Unspeakable would be easy. 

“Do you reckon we’ll find it here?” Harry asked.

So far, they had followed four false leads and had met four equally dead ends. 

“No,” Malfoy replies. “I think your birds are full of shit.”

Harry sighed. Sometimes, he felt like that, too. But, “They’re not mine.”

“Fine. Your _employer’s_ birds are full of shit.”

“I reckon they’re just trying to help.”

For what felt like the thousandth time, Malfoy quirked a single eyebrow at him. It was then that a raven flew straight past Malfoy’s nose, its wing knocking his cigarette out of his hand. 

“ _Bloody birds_ ,” Malfoy exclaimed, jumping up straight.

Harry snickered and took the letter from the bird. Then, as if on purpose, the raven made his exit flying just above Malfoy’s head, making Malfoy curse under his breath. Harry fumbled with the envelope, while his eyes remained glued to Malfoy running flustered fingers through his hair. However, as soon as Malfoy made a move to turn to Harry, Harry turned his eyes to the parchment. He could feel his cheeks flushing so he concentrated hard on the words written in indigo ink in front of him. More forms for progress reports. 

Harry felt Malfoy flopping down on the ground next to him. His voice startled Harry when it came too close to his skin, “You know what they call a flock of those?” 

Harry made a noncommittal noise and concentrated very hard on figuring out whether he felt his progress so far had been, Outstanding, Exceeding Expectations, Acceptable, Poor, Dreadful or Trollish. 

He did turn when Malfoy whispered low in his ear, “A conspiracy.” 

Harry caught Malfoy’s eye, and there was something there, something Harry couldn’t quite pinpoint. Then Malfoy looked up, frowned at the sky. He probably thought it was going to rain soon, too.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! All comments are extremely welcome either here or [on Livejournal](http://hd-fan-fair.livejournal.com/85235.html).


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